When i did the documentary about musicians that is on my “what i’m doing at the moment” page i interviewed many musicians and composers and even maestros. One maestro i interviewed was the artistic director of the festival i was in. His name is Roberto Minczuk and he is the Maestro and artistic director of the OSB (Orquestra Sinfonica Brasileira) which is an orchestra based in the city of Rio de Janeiro and also the Maestro of the Calgary Philarmonic orchestra. This year a really big situation started to take shape and now they talk about it all over the news. This maestro accepted this job in OSB in a difficult moment of the orchestra. Low salaries and lack of interest from the public were some of the things to be dealt with. Now after some years in the hand of Roberto Minczuk the salaries doubled and the orchestra have much more recognition all over the country. Well…after this first move where he found sponsors for the group and took the rust from the musicians it was time to work on the skills of these musicians. That’s where the problems started. Those musicians were there for a long time already and were never asked to do any kind of improvment. Roberto asked them to do a test. A kind of test that is used to understand the skills of a musician. Most of the musicians decided not to take the test and a battle started. The musicians that didn’t take the test after a long fight over the subject united them selves against the idea and in the end many were fired. It was all a big mess. Messages in facebook gathering musicians from all around the world. Important soloists cancelling their shows in OSB because of the events. I can see they are a really united class but they make me remember the politicians from socialist parties. Always working as a group to pressure the public opinion towards their interests. As if classical musicians that receive seven thousand dollars a month in a third world country should behave as Union workers from steal industry. I’m not here to make a case to Roberto Minczuk and i don’t think that it was good that those musicians were fired. What i do think is that it’s amazing how some groups still acts so against what the rest of the society is going through. What i mean is that i have to learn new stuff everyday and still i’ll get outdated and a kid will take my place. Everybody go through this kind of problem these days. Everybody is really competitive. It’s a dog fight in every corner waiting for you. So how can some expect my sympathy over this attitude of sitting tight on the job doing the least they can to receive their salary and forming groups to stand up against things that are not even an issue anymore? Everybody needs to improve. Why don’t they? It’s a kind of communist thinking that is funny to see today. I’m not evaluating as right or wrong in theory. Just out of place as there’s no room for this in our society. I see everyone out in the rain fighting for so little that it just makes me mad to see that “blaze” way of thinking. It’s really easy to overprice what you do and underprice others. It makes me remember of Fellini’s “Orchestra Rehearsal“. So in my opinion they should be fired and new people. That’s why socialism doesn’t work. If you can’t make more money at least you can work less!!!

If a musician is good enough to play in an orchestra, they are accomplished at their trade. You dont just walk into an orchestra. Asking them to do a test is castings aspertions upon their abilities as musicians, not their abilities as a person, so there is a huge difference there. Musicians of that standard only improve or maintain their high level of excellence by practice, not tests. They have already passed all music grades to reach the pinnacle of their profession.

Will leave the politics alone here as I am not entirely sure what you are trying to say.

Hi!!! I see your point and i would totally agree if we were talking about an European or North American Orchestra. In the third world countries we never had a big cultural thing going on in concert orchestras. Now there are really amazing programs that teach kids in really poor areas to play instruments and start a musician career. The guys in that orchestra the are a technical level that is way under other international orchestras. That was the thing that started this issue. The Maestro that surely wanted to have on his resume the achievement of turning OSB into an international level orchestra opened a pandora’s box that showed us this situation. Musicians that treated their jobs as lifetime deals but with no skills enough to do so… I have to imagine the Maestro knew what was ahead when he decided to do this. He knew there would be trouble. If the situation was any different he woudn’t mess with them. As far as i know he never asked his musicians from Calgary’s Philharmonic to do tests. Thanks for the comments Tino. You always have very good points to add to the subjects! I guess the parallel with politics is the fact that the lack or interest in evolving is the “Achilles’ heel” of socialism. Just a parallel actually.

My ex fiance’s family is the Mexican mafia. He is this beautiful person who will be 46 May 29. In a way I wish that I was still in touch with him. In January 1999 he took me to Baja, Mexico for my birthday and he told me that he wanted to write a screen play and that he was working on it about people who reposes cars. Then years later he was working on a screen play about people that worked in a grocery store. It was a comedy.